A video recorder computing device, such as a digital video recorder (DVR) or personal video recorder (PVR), is a device that may be utilized to digitally record and save media signals in a digital format to a storage medium. When connected to a cable or satellite line, a user may utilize a video recorder computing device to record movies and/or television programs in real-time. Many service providers provide service subscribers with a set-top box having integrated digital video recording capabilities. A video recorder computing device may be a standalone unit, or may be an integrated receiver that functions as a digital cable or satellite receiver and a video recorder computing device. Digital video recording may also be network-based, wherein programming may be recorded and stored in a service provider network and accessed by a user via a network-connected device. Some recorder computing devices may be controlled remotely using an application run on a remote communication device. The term “DVR” as it is used in this specification includes integrated video recorder computing set-top boxes, stand-alone video recorder computing units, network digital video recorders, a recorder associated with a network-connected video receiving device, remote-storage digital video recorders, and the like. Many DVRs utilize a hard disk recorder (HDR) to record to a hard disk drive. Various DVRs have a variety of hard disk drive storage capacities. For example, recording at a basic quality level, a DVR with a forty (40) gigabyte hard disk drive capacity may be able to record approximately forty (40) hours of programming. The more programming a user wants to record, the more storage capacity he/she needs. Video files can be very large, and high-definition videos may be even larger, which requires more hard disk drive space. Oftentimes, DVR users manage to fill their device's hard disk drive to capacity. When a DVR's hard disk drive has been filled to capacity, many DVRs allow for overwriting of old programs in order to make room for new recordings, which means that either DVR users eventually lose the shows they have recorded, or they may have to stop recording new shows.
As technology advances, hard disk drives with more storage capacity than hard disk drives in DVRs produced just a few years ago may become readily available and offered at competitive prices. Oftentimes, service providers lease DVR equipment to customers, and customers may pay for a monthly DVR service. While being able to offer the latest DVR equipment with greater storage capacity to customers may have many benefits, it can also present various customer service issues. For example, customer A and customer B may both subscribe to cable television services and also pay an additional amount for DVR services. Customer A may have acquired his/her DVR unit two years previous to customer B. While customer A and B both pay the same amount for their services, customer A's DVR unit may have half the hard disk drive storage capacity as customer B's. Customer A may have to sacrifice recording certain programming, or may have to delete programming that he/she would prefer to keep because of limited hard disk drive capacity. Customer A may become a dissatisfied customer if he/she becomes aware that he/she is paying the same amount as customer B for DVR service, but customer B has upgraded equipment with more storage capacity. As higher capacity hard disk drives are deployed in the future, more discrepancies in DVR equipment may arise.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.